Attention-control video game curbs combat vets' PTSD symptoms
Reduces fluctuations in attention toward and away from threat
2015-07-24
(Press-News.org) A computerized attention-control training program significantly reduced combat veterans' preoccupation with - or avoidance of -- threat and attendant PTSD symptoms. By contrast, another type of computerized training, called attention bias modification - which has proven helpful in treating anxiety disorders - did not reduce PTSD symptoms. NIMH and Israeli researchers conducted parallel trials in which the two treatments were tested in US and Israeli combat veterans.
Daniel Pine, M.D., of the NIMH Emotion and Development Branch, Yair Bar-Haim, Ph.D., School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, and colleagues, report on their findings
July 24, 2015 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
While attention bias modification trains attention either away from or toward threat, attention-control training implicitly teaches participants that threatening stimuli are irrelevant to performing their task. It requires them to attend equally to threatening and neutral stimuli. The study determined that this reduced symptoms by reducing attention bias variability. Attention control training balances such moment-to-moment fluctuations in attention bias from threat vigilance to threat avoidance, which correlated with the severity of PTSD symptoms and distinguished PTSD patients from healthy controls and patients with social anxiety or acute stress disorders.
INFORMATION:
ARTICLES:
Effect of attention training on attention bias variability and PTSD symptoms: randomized controlled trials in Israeli and US combat veterans. Badura-Brack AS, Naim R, Ryan TJ, Levy O, Abend R, Khanna MM, McDermott TJ, Pine WSD, Bar-Haim Y. American Journal of Psychiatry, July 24, 2015. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14121578.
Threat-related attention bias variability and posttraumatic stress. Naim R, Abend R, Wald I, Eldar S, Levi O, Fruchter E, Ginat K, Halpern P, Sipos M, Adler AB, Bliese PD, Quartana PJ, Pine DS, Bar-Haim Y. American Journal of Psychiatry, July 24, 2015. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14121579.
CLINICAL TRIAL ID: NCT015564667, NCT01368302
The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit the http://www.nimh.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit the http://www.nih.gov.
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[Press-News.org] Attention-control video game curbs combat vets' PTSD symptoms
Reduces fluctuations in attention toward and away from threat
